We borrowed data from citizens. Now, we’re giving it back.
We’re revisiting communities to share back data that they produced, in order to spark evidence-informed discussions about issues that matter most to them.
This blog post was published as part of the Data Zetu project. Data Zetu is now an initiative of the Tanzania dLab, a local NGO that promotes innovation and data literacy through a premier center of excellence. For more information about the dLab, visit www.dlab.or.tz. For more information about the Data Zetu project, visit www.irex.org.
Community members are frequently approached with requests to respond to questionnaires from individual researchers, NGOs, and other groups. However, too often, the insights from those reports, workshops, or discussions aren’t shared back to the citizens who provided that invaluable information. This recurring challenge alienates the community from their own data and disempowers them from taking action based on their collective evidence.
What is a “shareback session”?
Shareback sessions are meetups that share with community members data about their priorities that they originally produced with Data Zetu’s help. At these sessions, citizens discuss together with the community local leaders on how this data can help them understand and address challenges, like poor health infrastructure or substance abuse in their neighborhoods.
Starting in July 2018 and running until the end of this year, Data Zetu partners HOT and Sahara Sparks are conducting a series of Community Data Shareback Sessions. At these sessions, the team provides communities with synthesized data that they originally produced, breaking into groups to discuss the findings and then share their insights. They also discuss geospatial data created through community mapping efforts. These Shareback Sessions are being conducted in wards across Temeke, Mbeya, and Kyela districts— areas with some of the regions highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS.
The aim of these Shareback Sessions is to build some familiarity with accessing and using data, to facilitate sustainable civic engagement, and to provide a forum to help citizens and leaders explore opportunities to address those challenges surfaced in the data. This can empower the communities to take action and ownership over issues that matter to them, with data as a means to achieve that end.
What do these sharing sessions accomplish?
First, we’re seeing that showing communities their own citizen-generated data helps to catalyze dialog and debate. During discussion community members and leaders shared their views and perceptions on insights that were provided to them, leading to discussions about better ways to solve challenges in their respective communities, and about which stakeholders are needed at the table:
This data explains a lot about our challenges, we can change these challenges into opportunity, youth needs to step up and utilize opportunities and the government needs to support them.
— HIV committee representative from Makangarawe ward
We also noticed that these sessions help to expose gaps about how data is managed at the local levels. For example, ward leaders requested help on ways to store data, as they now store data manually and lose some data in process — making it hard for development efforts to target resources based on hyperlocal ward data about where they’re most needed. Insights like these can help inform Data Zetu’s District Action Planning events, which will take place after the Shareback Sessions.
These discussions also surfaced root causes about some the challenges presented in the data. For example, HOT shared a map, designed using citizen-generated inputs, showing the time one needs to travel to maternal and reproductive health care facilities. When discussing this data, one community member suggested that rules and regulations of running a dispensary do not allow them to work for 24 hours (a distinction reserved for health centers), which limits their availability and increases their service delivery burden.
We are trying as much as we can to provide the care that the community need. We‘re providing the service that may be equal to a health center, and the number of patients outweigh our capacity as a dispensary. [Right] now we’re on the level of dispensary, so we can’t operate for 24 hours; there is a regulation we must abide by.
— Doctor Eliudi H Chamgeni from Makangarawe Dispensary
Dialog like this, sparked by looking at community-generated data, helped to provide participants with valuable context to better understand this data. It also suggests that policy advocacy might be vital here, to expose the consequences of having dispensary operating with such limited hours for decision makers to potentially review these regulations.
What other impacts do these Shareback Sessions have?
Early impact data, based on surveys issued at the end of each shareback session, offer a glimpse into how these sessions are shaping perceptions of the role data can play in participants’ lives. After each session, 54% of them report an increase in how they value data to inform goals, decisions, or day-to-day activities. This amount is slightly higher for women (55%) than men (51%), but the most significant change is for young people (aged 35 or less). 73 percent of youth report an increase in their perceived value of data after participating in the Shareback sessions, compared with 41% of people over 35 years old.
Additionally, these sessions also help to clarify what issues matter most to different people in urban Tanzania. For instance, survey results show clear differences between themes that are interesting to men, women, and youth. When asked which themes of pain points they are most likely to use, 41% of men cited medical facilities and health care quality — more than they did for any other topic. Meanwhile, women’s most popular topics were split between medical facilities / health care and gender-based violence. Youth were more interested in unemployment and drug abuse issues. These insights might not be surprising, but they do challenge us to think about ways to target data about issues that matter most to different populations:
How are Tanzanians planning to use this information?
We don’t expect participants to immediately begin applying this data, but we were pleased to hear them already beginning to brainstorm use of data such as the community map information:
In my whole life, I have never seen a map specifically for Mbagala. Most importantly, a map showing all Wajumbe and Shina boundaries is incredible. I can imagine when I have visitors in “my subwards” showing them around using a map and direct them to a specific Mjumbe on a Shina.Thank you for choosing to map Mbagala
— Chairperson Mbagala Kuu Mashariki Subward, Mbagala Kuu ward
A Tandika ward officer requested to use the maps as well, saying in regard to the map of distance traveled to maternal health facilities:
This map is evidence when I ask for help in my ward. I will demonstrate maternal challenges by using maps, how women can face challenges before even reaching a health care center. The distance to health centers increases maternal death in my ward. If I have maps, they will help me to reach different development partner with evidence.
Linus Leopord, a Tandika ward police officer, also requested a copy of the map with street tags on it, for security and service provision:
In cases of emergencies such as theft and murder just a description will help to locate the place on a map and we may reach there quickly. Also there are areas with persistent crimes in our ward (Tandika), and maps will help us to intervene in these places as they are highly detailed, showing streets and Shina boundaries
A map which shows health center and dispensaries may help in cases of injuries when there is an accident, to rush wounded people to the nearby health facility.
— Tandika ward police officer
In Mbagala Kuu ward, Mr. Issa Mangungu, a Member of Parliament representing Mbagala constituency, participated in the Shareback Session and had an opportunity to directly answer to community issues. He even received a copy of a map of Shina boundaries, saying:
The map will help me in coordination of different projects as it shows all Shina locations and Shina leaders.
— Member of Parliament from Mbagala ward
What’s next?
We’ll continue conducting shareback sessions in each of the fourteen wards across Tanzania that we originally visited to collect data community-identified challenges. This enables us to adapt each session as we learn about what works and what doesn’t, and what information is most appealing to the participants. For instance, at these early Shareback Sessions, we saw that map literacy was a challenge. The community needs to be empowered so they can actually read and interpret the data that is presented in a map, and use it for different development initiatives. In the coming Shareback Sessions, more time will be spent reviewing ways to interpret maps, to make sure community members can read and interpret them
In the meantime, Data Zetu will continue the hard work of tracking the use and uptake of this data after the Shareback Sessions, adding to our growing list of data use stories that demonstrate how health, economic growth, and gender issues in subnational areas across Tanzania are being addressed and managed through better use of data and evidence.
